@darkling@mstdn.social avatar

darkling

@[email protected]

Software developer. Organiser of data. Ontologist. Unofficial btrfs support for the Fediverse. I'm not a digital native, but I did emigrate at an early age. Contents may have settled in transit.

"He's not drunk. He's like that all the time."

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. View on remote instance

@darkling@mstdn.social avatar darkling , to random

The three Rs.

Reading: Writhing and Rhythmatic.

@darkling@mstdn.social avatar darkling , to random

The three Rs.

Reading: Writhing and Rhythmatic.

@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar futurebird , to random

They chewed a hole in their tubing again. But, I found it at last. After sealing it this ant returned with a bit of cat food, she's waiting to be let in.

I moved her in by hand.

I have placed a test tube with a wet cotton ball near the hole. They will gather in there as they return and then I can dump in all the escaped ants at once.

There is something so endearing about how she's still holding what she found. Still so focused on bringing home something amazing for her sisters.

The back of the log that they live in where a large plastic tube is anchored. A little sneaky black ant holds a huge bit of cat food in her jaws waiting by the hole confused as to why she can't get back in.
ALT
darkling ,
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@futurebird Better with a bit of cat food than as a bit of cat food...

darkling ,
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@futurebird Have your ants been watching https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054417/ ?

@Lana@beige.party avatar Lana , to random

Pick the best fallacy

darkling ,
@darkling@mstdn.social avatar

@futurebird @mkb @Lana We all know Alan Turing had an iPod and listened to Billie Eilish.

@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar futurebird , (edited ) to random

Writing a program to teach programming is NOTHING like writing a program. Here is a binary conversion program 5th graders can understand. First I tell them we are making a program that will check the ages of people in a family. You must be over 10 to ride the roller coaster.

ages = [45, 50, 4, 13, 62, 21, 7]

for a in ages:
if a>=10:
print(a, "is old enough!")
else:
print(a, "is", 10-a, "years too young to ride!")

Clunky right? Well here comes the binary:

1/2

darkling ,
@darkling@mstdn.social avatar

@futurebird I've wondered about using physical objects to experiment with algorithms. Sort a bunch of playing cards -- what constraints do you need to add to the problem statement to be able to give a good idea of the effort involved?

(Simply handing over an unsorted pack doesn't help, because there are things you can do physically that don't map well to the computer represenation, like insertion of a card into the pack).

@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar futurebird , to random

Never get in an argument with a cat.
Never get in a fight with some ants.

My carpenter ants are DONE with winter. IDK why but they are awake. Maybe I gave them too much sugar as a winter snack, but it's time to get out the fluon again and set things up like it summer.

They won't be docile and let me clean their tank. They are trying to escape.

And I know you will think I'm making this up... but a four year old ant colony is much more sneaky and wily than a new ant colony.

darkling ,
@darkling@mstdn.social avatar

@futurebird Sort of Watership Down, but with ants.

@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar futurebird , to random

“Leiningen!” he shouted. “You’re insane! They’re not creatures you can fight–they’re an elemental–an ‘act of God!’ Ten miles long, two miles wide–ants, nothing but ants! And every single one of them a fiend from hell; before you can spit three times they’ll eat a full-grown buffalo to the bones.

From "Leiningen Versus the Ants" 1938

Ants love that this is how powerful people think they are.

darkling ,
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@futurebird @Wyatt_H_Knott I misread this as "army aunt syndrome", and now I want to learn more.

Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 30th November 2025 - awful.systems ( awful.systems )

Want to wade into the sandy surf of the abyss? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret. ...

darkling ,
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@gerikson@awful.systems avatar gerikson BlueMonday1984 The only thing that could have made that article better is if he'd literally ended it mid-sentence.

@stux@mstdn.social avatar stux , to random
darkling ,
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@stux I like the first two (waiting, and head-tilt) better than the two action shots.

@stux@mstdn.social avatar stux , to random

Got advice to change the banner, is the one with a background better? (left)

Current banner

Current banner
ALT
darkling ,
@darkling@mstdn.social avatar

@stux I think I slightly prefer the one with the background, but either is good.

@stux@mstdn.social avatar stux , to random

I don't know, a soft-reference? :blobpirate:

Captain Ned Flix NPC pirate tells about how bad streaming is currently

darkling ,
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@stux Nice. :)

One small typo: where -> were

darkling ,
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@stux Blimey, that was quick. :)

darkling ,
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@stux Even finding the line in the source would have taken me a longer time...

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

What’s that thing called when you’ve been on the internet for so many decades and then come across a whole culture, almost a cult, that’s influenced the shape of todays internet and even irl political life, based on a throwaway shitpost you made in 1992 - and it’s not even the first time?

darkling ,
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@NanoRaptor Notoriety, I think.

Either that, or you're a Kwitsaz Haderach.

@stux@mstdn.social avatar stux , to random

This was the very first computer game I ever played in my life

My little brother got to go first but he got motion sick very quickly

What's your first game?

Jazz Rabbit from 1998, played it early 2000's
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darkling ,
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@stux On a domestic or office computer, I think it must have been the version of Breakout that came on the starter tape with the Spectrum.

I'd probably played cabinets before that point, though. (Space Invaders was probably old hat by that point, but I remember Defender, Zaxxon, and Tempest in the local swimming pool.)

@georgetakei@universeodon.com avatar georgetakei , to random

Which is it, Mike?

Tweet from the Democrats’ official account saying “weird.” Below are two screenshots labeled “Mike Johnson last week” and “Mike Johnson now.” In the first, Johnson says Republicans control the White House, Senate, and House. In the second, he says Republicans aren’t in charge of government.
ALT
darkling ,
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@georgetakei "We have always been at war with Oceania".

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

Why is no one posting about this

darkling ,
@darkling@mstdn.social avatar

@mcc Sorry, the handle fell off, and the replacement's on back-order.

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

More name stuff.

A friend elsewhere reminded me many boomers and early GenX folk don't use their birth names - they go by nicknames that may be nothing to do with their actual birth certificate name.

I realised of my immediate family, mum, her brothers, dad, his brother & wife - and all their kids - none of them use their biological name. three quarters use entirely different names. the rest use similarish nicks.

It's just me. only me, who uses the name on my birth certificate.

Holy wow.

darkling ,
@darkling@mstdn.social avatar

@NanoRaptor Both my dad and a maternal great grandfather went by their official names... but in both cases, that wasn't the name that was originally anticipated by their parents.

Dad would have been Paul, but was born on March 17th, so ended up as Patrick.

GGF was christened Cecil, but we think the vicar had an attack of administrative deafness on being told that the baby's name was Thistle.

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

Getting angry again that I didn’t get to see the zanclean flood.

darkling ,
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@NanoRaptor I didn't even manage to get up in time to see the Missoula floods.

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

Diagnosed with Generalized Disorder

darkling ,
@darkling@mstdn.social avatar

@mcc How did you get my medical records?

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

Okay so imagine I take this graph of investment relationships between AI companies, and I separately take the network architecture diagram for the Bluesky "Atmosphere Protocol", and I'm able to show the graphs are isomorphic. What have I just proven

https://social.coop/@eloquence/115340124760759142

darkling ,
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@mcc A correlation, not necessarily a causation.

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

Just saw an ad for the ocean

darkling ,
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@mcc Get yours now! Stocks going fast!

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , (edited ) to random

Poll: Did you use Google Reader?

darkling ,
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@mcc I wrote my own...

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

So for most of this year the official C# dotnet packages have not worked on Debian 13/Trixie (former "unstable"). For the least couple months I've been entirely unable to tell if Debian 13 is supported.

https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/issues/48973#issuecomment-3326058047

https://github.com/dotnet/core/issues/9649#issuecomment-3218332720

My current experience is that there is no official Debian 13 package or documented support, but the Debian 12 packages work on Debian 13. Microsoft keeps closing github bugs without clarification. Separately, Powershell may or may not be broken.

darkling ,
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@mcc It took them a couple of years to get around to recompiling the Debian package for the aks tool (IIRC) to use the new TLS library so it'd actually work for some things.

(I'm probably wrong on the tool, but there was definitely something that was long-term broken over something like Debian 12 retiring GnuTLS in favour of OpenSSL).

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

What's the oldest piece of machinery that you own that still works, for its original purpose, in (mostly!) its original state?

darkling ,
@darkling@mstdn.social avatar

@NanoRaptor I have a couple of 1950s slide rules, and a Box Brownie of indeterminate vintage (but probably at least as old). There's a 1970s HP38C (IIRC) in a box over ←there too.

I haven't tried out the camera, but it's Probably Still OK, as long as you can find suitable film for it.

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

YOU SHOULD WATCH "KNIGHTS OF GUINEVERE" IF

  1. You just cancelled Disney+ and want something on-the-nose thematically appropriate to this moment.

  2. You wish Steven Universe had been more "Empty Spaces".

  3. You get excited and point at the television screen when something has visual references to Utena.

  4. Look just watch it watch it look it's on YouTube it takes nothing but 23 minutes of your time what can I say that will convince you to watch this watch it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCAdbUaMlAE

darkling ,
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@mcc Making blood-curdling owls?

(I will only give up this pun when you take it from my cold, dead hands).

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

You find a data port on your body and plug in a diagnostic cable to download your status and error codes.

Which codes is your body throwing?

darkling ,
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@NanoRaptor ECC failures, and RAID-5 recovery messages.

I think the engine warning light may be on, too, and the gas safety certificate isn't up to date.

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

A running thing about Rust for me is that I get frustrated because I have about three times as much error handling code as I do in any other programming language but it's hard to complain because the fact of the matter is my Rust programs correctly handle errors at least three times as often as my non-Rust programs

I have talked about this before because it keeps happening

darkling ,
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@mcc The rust compiler is a tough audience.

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

Questions:

  • What if we added something to HTTP where if you're only fetching a page to read OpenGraph tags, you send a special header saying "I only want the OpenGraph data", and the server then has the option of sending only the <meta> tags and nothing else?

  • Could this help with the Mastodon "hug of death" (because the server can generate a simpler version of the page, caches can behave differently etc) where many instances rush to generate preview cards driving the previewed site offline?

darkling ,
@darkling@mstdn.social avatar

@mcc Couldn't you just do that with content negotiation, and a media type that's "OG metadata"?

@soatok@furry.engineer avatar soatok , to random

Fun observation:

If you do cool stuff, then over time you will gather a bunch of people who are interested in doing cool shit, and will quickly feel like the cool shit you're doing is inadequate because you're surrounded by people who can do cooler shit than you.

This is a desirable outcome. (It's related to the friendship paradox, too!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_paradox

darkling ,
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@soatok As an academic, I always found that everyone else had cooler toys (and not just the other scientists).

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

"color has been compromised" David Langford basilisk FAQ ass security disclosure

https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/115169390397282254

darkling ,
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@mcc Please view in black and white for the next few hours, until mitigating filters can be applied.

Optimists and other users of rose-tinted spectacles may wish to cover their eyes completely until the bad things go away.

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

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    darkling ,
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    @NanoRaptor The damn thing just needs to stop having "good ideas" when I'm trying to relax, dammit.

    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

    Still literally incapable of seeing the word "HarfBuzz" without the thought immediately running through my head "Stop harfing my buzz"

    darkling ,
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    @mcc Was Fizz cancelled or something, so they had to use Harf?

    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

    Finished reading "Exodus" by Peter F Hamilton

    Actually pretty good. Starts glacially slow even by Hamilton's sprawling standards but when things come together they come together hard. Any queer folk reading this, there will be one specific point you just howl.

    The opening is a weird infodump that feels less like Hamilton and more like you're reading a summary of a pen & paper roleplaying game. This is explained on the book's final page: an ad for the roleplaying game this ties in with. Oh.

    darkling ,
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    @mcc Mine has always been Mindstar Rising and its sequels. Totally different to anything he's written since (in length as well as content).

    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

    Just saw a question go by on the Rust discord about whether anyone is using Bacon with Kitty

    darkling ,
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    @mcc Was it John Scalzi?

    @nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar nixCraft , to random

    What’s the most disturbing, scary linux or unix command you’ve seen or executed ever?

    darkling ,
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    @nixCraft The worst one I've done, by accident, was

    /lib # rm -rf modules/2.6.18/ *

    That space made all the difference between what was intended and what actually happened... :catfacepalm:

    @futurebird@sauropods.win avatar futurebird , to random

    So our mayor is famous for this video where he talks about places your kid might be hiding drugs. Classic 80s paranoia.

    Perhaps we should have paid more attention to his "sneak craft" game: recently this same man was responsible for a cash money bribe given to a reporter ... in a greasy bag of potato chips. YES.

    I think for NYC our dislike of the mayor isn't just about his corruption, it's also about how BAD he is at being corrupt.

    https://youtu.be/sk2Wc4Y5CxE?t=187

    https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/eric-adams-adviser-suspended-after-giving-reporter-chip-bag-with-cash-inside-245503045743

    darkling ,
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    @futurebird I saw an article a while ago which looked at the sums that national-level politicians had been caught taking in, err..., "undeclared gifts". They were remarkably small -- like, few even topped £10k.

    Conclusion: Politicians are cheap.

    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

    If life had a button to switch to isometric perspective would you press it

    darkling ,
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    @mcc My imagination does this frequently.

    @NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

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    darkling ,
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    @NanoRaptor Hours after first seeing this, I'm now wondering about the sort of thing to go into the hexagon, and thinking of Reuleaux triangles and similar geometries, like the drill mechanism to drill square holes, and... aaaargh, you bastard!

    @georgetakei@universeodon.com avatar georgetakei , to random

    Paging Jake Tapper…

    A screenshot of a tweet from FactPost (@factpostnews) that says: “Trump appears to forget Alaska is part of the US for a third time: ‘...I’m out of here. And I go back to the United States.’” Below the text is an image from Fox News showing Donald Trump sitting in an airplane, speaking to a reporter holding a microphone. The Fox News chyron reads: “APPLYING PRESSURE — TRUMP THREATENS CONSEQUENCES IF TALKS FAIL.”
    ALT
    darkling ,
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    @georgetakei "Trump threatens consequences if talks fail"... like, he's going to invade Ukraine, too?

    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

    [BIKESHED COLOR ADVICE REQUEST]

    I do all my self-hosting on a couple of VPSes. Because I have been using a single configuration for a couple decades, they both use MySQL for all databases.

    Do you want to try to convince me I should switch from MySQL to PostgreSQL? If I should switch, why?

    darkling ,
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    @mcc These days, there's probably not a great deal between them technically. (It used to be that MySQL was faster and PostgreSQL was correcter, but that was a long time ago).

    So, given that, I'd say "go with the one you can manage more easily". For me, that's Postgres. I'm guessing that for you that's MySQL.

    I'm not sure if MySQL/MariaDB is more of a hostage to corporate ownership fuckery than PostgreSQL, but maybe that's worth checking?

    darkling ,
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    @mcc "Easier to manage" is almost always path-dependent based on the experience of the person doing the managing. (There are a very few occasions where there's a clear benefit between two choices -- but this isn't one of them, IMO).

    My suggestion was basically "which one do you feel more familiar with right now?" because that's going to be the easiest route for you.

    Yeah, I know, total fence-sitting, but I thought I'd get in before everyone turns up in their shed-painting overalls. :)

    darkling ,
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    @mcc Ha. Then I guess you're getting covered in paint. :)

    @Codeberg@social.anoxinon.de avatar Codeberg , to random

    We, the operators of this social media account, sometimes face dilemmas about what we want to post. For example: "Are you a Hubber and want to become a Berger? We're looking forward to you!"

    Love it or hate it, one thing is certain: It doesn't really matter, because others are doing our marketing today. 🙃

    darkling ,
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    @Codeberg Or possibly Codeburgher.

    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

    An unimaginable weight

    darkling ,
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    @mcc Are you designing fonts again?

    @mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , to random

    I have 2 computers:

    • Desktop with NVidia 3070Ti, Windows
    • Laptop with AMD 600M integrated, Linux

    I'd like to get a new monitor that supports both VRR (Gsync/Freesync) and HDR on both these machines (or if I can't support both with 1 monitor, the Desktop).

    Price matters to me but "quality" kinda doesn't (my eyesight sucks & I prefer 1080p over hidpi, hidpi is glitchy). I just want HDR/VRR and for it to not be terrible.

    What would you recommend, or where would you recommend I start looking?

    darkling ,
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    @mcc That would be the measurement I'd expect.

    These days, it's the visible picture area.(With CRTs, it was the physical tube size, so you'd have to subtract about an inch and a half to get the visible diagonal).

    @phooky@hexa.club avatar phooky , to random

    Google had a license to print money as long as they didn't fuck up search, and they knew it. It has been fascinating to watch them fuck up search.

    I needed to install Orcaslicer, so I googled it. The official site was the fifth result. Two of the three highest ranked results were sites masquerading as the official site, possibly to sell ads, possibly to distribute malware.

    If you search for "orcaslicer official", you'll get the correct site as the first result.

    darkling ,
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    @demofox @phooky The 20% time was an interesting thing.

    It's effectively about wear-levelling of developers. If you work everyone full-time on stuff, there's times when you have too much stuff and not enough developers. So you want times when there's too many developers for the stuff you have to have. But then you have bored developers, so you want something to keep them occupied.

    That's the 20% time.